Markets Without Limits

Latest News

USA Today editorial

Sep 13: Peter tells Americans that they shouldn’t end NAFTA because Canada desperately needs their bodily fluids. (Because Canada prohibits payment for sperm, we buy it from the U.S. Because Canada keeps making payment for blood plasma illegal in province after province, we rely on the U.S.) Read the rest.

National Post editorial

Aug 24: Peter’s editorial on markets in blood plasma was published in the National Post today. Entitled, “Canada needs blood plasma. We should pay donors to get it,” Peter argues that, “Canada buys the vast majority of its plasma-protein products from American companies that attract plasma donors by paying them. Yet we ban the same practice here.” Read the rest.

Michael Sandel gets MWoL

Apr 7: Peter listened to Michael Sandel’s talk on the moral limits of markets at Georgetown. Afterwards, he gave him a (free) copy of Markets without Limits.

About the Book

May you sell your vote? May you sell your kidney? May gay men pay surrogates to bear them children? May spouses pay each other to watch the kids, do the dishes, or have sex? Should we allow the rich to genetically engineer gifted, beautiful children? Should we allow betting markets on terrorist attacks and natural disasters?

Most people shudder at the thought. To put some goods and services for sale offends human dignity. If everything iscommodified, then nothing is sacred. The market corrodes our character. Or so most people say.

In Markets without Limits, Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski give markets a fair hearing. The market does not introduce wrongness where there was not any previously. Thus, the authors claim, the question of what rightfully may be bought and sold has a simple answer: if you may do it for free, you may do it for money. Contrary to the conservative consensus, they claim there are no inherent limits to what can be bought and sold, but only restrictions on how we buy and sell.

Syllabi

Markets without Limits is currently or has been used on the syllabus for the following courses (contact either of us to see samples):